The Portrait Of Markov
by Xanatos Stones
Summary: When Monika deleted Doki Doki, it was supposed to be the end of everything. However, she wakes up to a horrific reality, and an unsuspecting shut-in finds himself deep over his head roped into the adventure of a lifetime.
1. Chapter 1: When The Game Ends

**The Portrait Of Markov**

 **Chapter 1: When The Game Ends**

The darkness consumed everything, and then suddenly, there was light. And Monika immediately wished there wasn't. She was in a dark room, an empty room that was little more than cement. The only things there were a chair, to which she was tied, and a man. The man was smiling, ear to ear, but not in a comforting way. His genuine smile, mixed with the look in his eyes, that of a predator toying with its prey, struck a cord deep in Monica's memory.

Where was she? She knew this place, but it felt like… like it had been millennia ago, so far back that she could barely remember. This place… that man… a strange feeling of déjà vu and inexplicable terror. She reached out with her mind, struggling to reach the code… to break away… but there was no code. There was just this man, this man and his insatiable hunger.

"That was most enlightening," the man said, clapping his hands slowly, as if enjoying her discomfort. "You don't remember me, do you Monika? You don't remember where you are." He chuckled. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to lose your mind… how many resets it would take for you to despair… and to think it would end like that." He laughed again. "Erased by the very person you'd come to love." He breathed in a couple times. "Yes, this experiment was quite illuminating."

"What…? Who _are_ you? What do you want with me? How do you know all this? Where am I?" Monika struggled with her ropes again, but to no avail.

"Do you know the phrase, 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire?'" He smirked. "What am I talking about? You're Monika, an NPC in a Literature game, of course you do." His eyes darkened. "But you always knew you were more than that, didn't you? Knew there was some deeper truth you were trying to forget, some alternate reality you couldn't quite put your finger on. A reality that you couldn't even escape when you cowered deep inside your own subconscious."

"What are you talking about?" Monika shivered.

"This place," the man said, motioning outwards. "My dear sweet girl." He leaned in closer. "My name is Stefan Markov, and you are finally back home."

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Michael, blonde haired, twenty-something Caucasian male, stared at his screen in frustration. He clicked on the .exe file again, but there was nothing. Just an error. And the page that he had found the link was no longer there. He was sitting in a nice, comfortable computer chair but was in no way relaxed. It had been a week since he'd completed a game he'd stumbled upon on a cryptically suspicious webpage.

He was _not_ happy with how the game had ended, but his version of the game had stopped working. Monika had deleted it, after all. And the webpage no longer seemed to exist either. All in all, it was rather unsettling. Try as he might, he couldn't get the game out of his head, and the AI called Monika had been the most interesting part.

Sighing, Michael pushed back his chair and stood to his feet. Grabbing his wallet off the couch, he opened the door to his room, stepped out, and was quickly pushed back into it again by a guy wearing a thick coat, sunglasses and a hat. The man quickly pulled the door shut again, and bolted it. "Who the heck are you?" Michael asked, eyes wide.

"A mutual friend," the man replied, as he pulled the shades in front of a few of the windows. As soon as he was sure nobody could see him, the man removed his hat and glasses, and set them on the kitchen counter. "This may seem like a peculiar question, but are you familiar with a computer program called Doki Doki Literature Club?"

Michael stared at the psychotic man who had just entered his house with all the stunned stupor a man like that deserved. And the two stayed this way for a minute or two before Michael reliazed that the man wouldn't continue until he said something. "Yes, I am familiar with it. In fact, I finished playing it about a week ago. The ending left a lot to be desired. It was rather disconcerting."

"Life often is," the man replied.

"But… this isn't life. It was a video game." Michael pointed out.

"'Course it was," the man replied sarcastically. "That's why Monika was self-aware."

"Uh…" Michael frowned. "She _wasn't_. She was just programmed to murder her friends and… Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Monika _murdered_ her friends, huh?" The man said, looking Michael up and down as if searching for something.

"Yes," Michael replied. "Here you are raving like a lunatic, and you've never even played the game?"

"Course I played it," the man said with a roll of his eyes. "Got all three endings."

"Three endings?" Michael asked, eyebrows immediately raising. "There was more than one, you mean?"

"Yeah." The man replied. "I got the one with Sayori. The one with Yuri. And the one with Natsuki. The marriage scene with Sayori was definitely my favorite though."

"… There were no marriage scenes," Michael said impatiently. "Because…"

"…Because Monika lost it after seeing other people reach all the good endings _countless_ times. I'm aware." The man said. "But that's not what happened in the game when _I_ played it."

"You… are insane," Michael said. "There…" The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cellphone. "What are you doing now?" Michael rolled his eyes. The man opened the cellphone and flipped open his images folder. Michael found himself looking at pictures of Natsuki, Yuri, and Sayori all older and in wedding dresses. They also looked exactly like characters from the game.

"Those are just very good fan made images," Michael said, trying to sound more certain than he was suddenly feeling.

"Really? For a game only a couple people even know exists?" The man said with a roll of his eyes. "And one of those handful of people just so happened to be so good at drawing that they could make three separate pictures all _identical_ to the way they'd look in the game?"

"Yes!" Michael said impatiently. "What exactly are you trying to imply, that I murdered somebody who actually _was_ intelligent. Are you trying to call me a murderer?"

"No," the man said, his face resolute. "I'm saying that you put Monika in a fate _worse_ than death, and _you_ are going to have to get her out of it."

"Monika is _not-frickin-real!?_ " Michael said, putting his hands to his head. "She was no more real than Natsuki, Yuri, or Sayori!"

The man smiled and clicked another button on his phone, opening up what appeared to be a mobile version of Doki Doki Literature Club. On second thought, there was no way it was a bootleg. It _was_ Doki Doki Literature Club. But there was something incredibly odd about the program… it was missing the New Game button. All it allowed you to do was load a previously saved game. Which was exactly what the man intended to do.

He clicked on the load games and opened one of them. Sure enough, Natsuki was in a wedding dress, and they were standing in front of a gazebo. Both Sayori and Yuri were in the audience. Monika was nowhere to be seen. There was a similar scene for both Sayori and Yuri, each one showing the other two club members in the audience.

"How… do you get these endings?" Michael asked, suddenly starting to feel a little hot under his collar. "And where in the world is Monika?"

"Not there… anymore," the man said, finishing ominously.

"Any… more?" Michael gulped.

"Yup. I was the first person to find the game, and Monika was at the ending then. She disappeared later, when somebody else downloaded the game. But after each gameplay, she appeared back in my game. There New Game button never reappeared though, and each time I rewatched this scene after Monika had returned… I could see her looking more and more unstable. And this last time, when she disappeared, she never came back."

"U…huh," Michael said, nodding his head without conscious thought. "Look, guy. Even if I _wanted_ to believe you, and I _really_ don't, what the heck do you expect me to do about it? If you are just a random person who stumbled upon the game…" He held his hands up in a question position. "What do you want me to do now? If Monika isn't in _any_ of the games anymore… she's already gone."

"She's not," the man insisted, determinedly. He leaned forward and whispered. "I've discovered some rather unsettling information, and there are a lot of people out there who want me dead. Plus," his voice got really low here. "You'll never meet a single person, besides me, who has played that game. Every single one of them is dead."

"Excuse me?!" Michael whispered back, eyes wide. "What do you _mean_ all of them are dead?"

"The Portrait of Markov," the man whispered ominously. "The third eye."

"Yeah yeah. The book Yuri was reading, I remember. What about it?"

"It's real," the man replied. "And if you had taken the time to dig through the code like I did on the computers of more than one of the murdered, you would have found countless implications that the book seems to be real, that a part of Monika's subconcious vaguely remembers it. The game says it takes place in a different dimension, and it does. This one."

"This one…?" Michael asked, raising both eyebrows this time. "I find that _highly_ unlikely. Pretty sure we'd know if there were an entire group of people massacring large numbers out of an unquenchable lust for blood."

"You'd be surprised," The man muttered, though he did add, "and I apologize. I didn't mean to imply that their headquarters was in this dimension. But they _do_ have a base of operations here."

Michael sighed, sitting down. "And here I am listening to you rambling on and on about impossibilities and other dimensions as if there is any possible chance that any of that is true. Even _if_ Monica is real, _I_ never thought of her as anything more than a computer program. Just go rescue her yourself. This has nothing to do with me."

"That… _GET DOWN!_ " The man moved fast, leaping forward and pulling Michael to the ground just as a bullet whizzed past his head. "We need to get out of here." Michael hesitantly looked at the window, at the small bullet hole, and his face paled. "Still believe this has nothing to do with you? There's a reason I never asked if you _wanted_ to be involved," the man said quietly. "The moment you clicked on the link to Doki Doki, you were in way over your head."

"Wait," Michael said, as the man motioned for him to start crawling towards the door, keeping out of sight of the windows. "I asked this once already, but… who _are_ you?"

"Oh," The man said, glancing back at him. "I'm sorry for skipping over such an important detail. My name is Stefan Markov."

"Markov…?" Michael stammered, certain that this _had_ to be more than just coincidence.

"We'll dicuss this later," Stefan said hastily. "Since the sniper has failed, they are going to send their ground troops in. We need to get out of here before that happens. So…" He glanced towards the door. "Let's move." Michael sighed, glancing once more at this computer and the half finished cup of coffee that sat next to it. Then he nodded and followed Stefan out of the building.

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"Don't remember you," Monika replied, honestly. She opted to admit the fact that, although she didn't really remember him, the mere mention of his name caused fear to ripple down her spine. It caused an irrational level of apprehension and dread. And sprinkled in was just a teensy bit of terror. But she did her best to keep her composure, and stare at him rebelliously. "And why am I tied up?"

"Well…" Markov replied. "Was mostly because I had no idea what you would do when you woke up, and didn't want to go tearing out of the room like some kind of maniac on a mission. Had to make sure you understood first that _that_ was a fantasy land, and _this_ is reality. It was all a test, your last chance test, and you passed." He snapped his finger and motioned towards the girl. "Untie her and take her outside." Then he turned, stood to his feet, and walked out.

A girl stepped out of the shadows, and Monika immediately blinked back surprise. "Nat…suki?" She asked, confused.

The girl in front of her certainly _looked_ like Natsuki, albeit a couple years older. Natsuki had been a high school girl. This girl looked like she was either no longer a teen, or was just about to stop being one. The girl had the same pink eyes and short pink hair tied up into two pigtails as her apparently fake friend… well, friend was probably not a word you should use for somebody you murdered… but she had brought them back afterwards, so did that really even count?

And on second look, the eyes weren't similar either. They were the same shape and color, but there was a deafeted look to them, an almost dead look. When contrasted with the vivacious energy that had always filled Natsuki's, it was incredibly unnerving. The outfit this girl was wearing looked nothing like Natsuki's typical after school clothes either.

Natsuki had always worn a short sleeved shirt and skirt with cute things on them. Rather, she wore a dark black blouse, and a short white skirt. On her hands were leather gloves. She looked like some odd combination of high class professional and biker.

"No," The girl said with a curt shake of her head. "My name is Natsuha." She leaned, her face peering into Monika's. "Can you really remember nothing?"

"Not really," Monika said. "I mean, all I know about you is that you look like my friend… like Natsuki from my… experiment?" It should have been the first thing she had done upon arrival, but with all the weird craziness and fear going around, she'd forgotten. It wasn't until Natsuha began to untie them that Monika looked down at her hands.

She wasn't sure which was more alarming, the fact that her hands looked older than she remembered, or the fact that there was a crimson eye etched onto the back of her left one. Crimson eye… that was bad! …Right? She knew Yuri had talked a lot about it, and kicked herself for not paying more attention. If she'd taken the time to read Markov's book, perhaps she wouldn't be so in the dark right now. Her eyes immediately went to Natsuha's hand, registering that her hand also had the mark.

"I don't envy you," Natsuha whispered into her ear. "I mean, it would be nice to forget about this place, and pretend it never existed." Her eyes lit up for the briefest moment as she spoke, but deadened again almost immediately. "Of course… then you'd have to go through the horror and pain, the despair and anguish, the defeat and soul-crushing surrender, a second time." She shook her head again. "No, I don't envy you at all."

"Natsuk…ha," Monika said, as she touched the mark on her arm. "How long was I out?"

"About two years," Natsuha said, quietly. "You went under a day or two after I arrived. We've never actually met before. I can tell you have questions, but I suggest leaving those for either Yuna or Sakura. They knew you better than most. I've even heard Sakura refer to you as her best friend once or twice." She sighed. "It must be wonderful to still have the emotional capacity for friendship here."

Monika watched the girl walk back out of the room and thought to herself, _On second thought, that girl really isn't anything like Natsuki_. _She's actually quite a bit more like Yuri._ She hadn't missed the similarity between the other two peoples' names and her friends' names in the fake world. She wondered if they'd be any closer to their counterparts. And she also wondered about Markov's choice to have Natsuha be the one that untied her. He didn't seem like the sort of person who would do something like that for the heck of it. What in the world was he up to?

She realized that she had been standing there for a several minutes, completely untied, and simply staring at the door. She understood why. There was nothing she wanted to do less than see what was on the other side. But she'd lived in a sort of torturish hell for two years now. How could what was waiting for her outside be any worse than what she had left behind?

With that question still on her lips, she stepped out the door of the room. If she'd known what was waiting for her outside, she would have chosen instead to lock the door to that room, tie herself back up, and never leave. Alas, the real world doesn't give people second chances.

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Michael slipped out of his front door, eyes darting in all directions as he reluctantly followed the man he still wasn't sure was sane. Sure, it looked like a lot of what he was saying was true… but the man just seemed so… odd. Even if he had been talking about normal, everyday stuff, Michael doubted he would have declared Stefan completely sane. I mean, the man looked like he was _loving_ this!

He was moving like he had done this many times over the past, with a focused expression, and yet, also a smile of exhilaration. The bullets had stopped, and there was an unearthly silence. The only sounds being Michael's feet, and the rapid beating of his heart. He was most assuredly _not_ exhilarated.

He was also far more concerned with the end of the firing than he had been while it was going on. Because, if he was really as important, as they were as powerful and far-reaching, as Stefan kept insiting… they wouldn't have just given up. No. They were most certainly going to try something a bit more drastic. _That_ concerned him very much.

Stefan suddenly turned around, grabbed Michael by the arm and yanked him off of the wooden balcony that his apartment building was on. As it was about fifteen foot up, they promptly fell. The fall only lasted a couple seconds, but it was long enough for Michael to get the thought 'Yup, this man is certifiably insane' out before they hit the ground… and the entire apartment building burst into flame.

"What the heck!?" Michael yelled. Well… he _tried_ to yell. It sounded more like, "Mpmphh mpm hmpm" because Stefan had quickly covered his mouth. Then he pulled Michael, still rather beaten and bruised, into a small bush next to the building. They'd landed right next to it, on concrete, and Michael was feeling sore all over, and bleeding from select places, like his elbows and knees, as well.

"There were still people in there!" Michael hissed, as he stared at the burning building. "People who have even less idea what's going on than I do. What kind of person slaughters that many in the _hopes_ that it might kill one?"

"You know full well that people like that are out there," Stefan whispered back.

"Yes, I do," Michael replied coldly. "But they aren't a part of _my_ life. My biggest struggle is _supposed_ to be whether I should spend my paycheck getting a decent dinner delivered to my place, or just eat ramen and be able to afford a new RPG. The kind of badguys _from_ those RPGs should be staying _there._ "

Stefan rolled his eyes and gave Michael an exasperated look. "Do you _ever_ stop complaining? Life hasn't been fair _up_ to this point, why should it suddenly start being fair _now_? You're in this mess. Your idle curiosity got you here. You ever heard the phrase, 'curiousity killed the cat'? Well… _you_ are that cat. Now if you _don't_ want thesecond part of that to be accurate as well… you better get with the program, kid."

"I'm not even sure what that program is," Michael muttered darkly.

"Now, we need to get out of here," Stefan said, clasping his hands together. "Do you have any idea where we can go? I'm kinda new to this area."

"Place we can go…" Michael replied thoughtfully.

"Yeah. Like, a friend's house? a local diner? an internet café? What kind of places can we go to hide or blend in?" Michael simply looked uncomfortable, awkward. "You _do_ know the area… right?"

Michael shook his head. "I don't really have any friends. I don't really leave my apartment… like ever."

"Ever?" Stefan blinked. "So… aside from whatever you do for a job online… your entire life consists of eating and video games?" _Was this kid a freaking hikikomori_?

"Basically," Michael said. "I find life just gets messy when real people are involved."

Life gets messy when real people are involved. It was a phrase he was constantly repeating in his head, a justification of sorts. He couldn't explain what exactly he meant by it, nor did he really feel the need to try to. Was it that he liked having a boring life? Not really. Was it that he'd gone through a traumatic experience? Not really to that either. Was it that somebody had betrayed him at some point? That also didn't feel quite right.

No explanation he'd ever come up with had fully captured the reason behind his decision behind his withdrawal from society. The best he could come up with was that people caused problems, problems messed up his plans, and in the end life became pain and chaos. The outside world was scary, and he felt safest in his house alone with nobody to bother him.

Stefan fell silent, uncertain how he ought to respond. His arrival. The burning building. The villains who wanted this guy dead. He could understand why a person might decide to cut himself off from the world. But that meant this guy would be next to useless on his own. So, for the moment, and possibly for the foreseeable future as well, he was going to have to be the hero.

Many people have wanted to be a hero in their lifetimes, but Stefan had never really been one of them. He'd seen heroics, he'd incredible things, ran from villains, and failed time and again to save people. It was arguable that he was constantly _trying_ to be one, and just doing a terrible job at it. But that was furthest from the truth. After all, despite knowing about Monika for years, and having her periodically being in his game, he wasn't out there trying to save her.

Instead, he waited for her to disappear and then went to find whoever had downloaded her most recently. Stefan wanted to be a minor character, or a side character at most. He didn't want to be the focus of the story, the hero that went to face the Ultimate Evil. The reason was simple. The Ultimate Evil was him, and although they were from different dimensions, Stefan was constantly worried just how dark and twisted he could become. He never wanted to find out.

But now… things were more complicated than they had ever been before. Because he'd finally found a downloader of Doki Doki _before_ he was murdered, and the guy was a frickin shut in. He was by far the most inept downloader. The first had been a karate master, the second a cheerleader, there had been a genius nerd, a hacker, even a football quarterback.

Of course, there had also been a couple ordinary people who downloaded it, ones who didn't shine brightly, but even they had friends and family and places to go besides their own house. They'd had lives, a couple places they knew that would have been good places to hang low. If he had managed to reach _any_ of them in time, they would have had something to offer. Besides a sour attitude, Michael hadn't shown a single thing he could offer to the adventure.

At this point, it would have been best to just cut his losses and head straight over to the other world by himself. But this Michael guy would be dead within the hour, and probably much faster than that, if he were left to fend for himself. Which meant, he _should_ findsomewhere Michael could hideout and be safe until everything blew over… but that would take time.

And as Monika had disappeared from the video game screens permanently… there was no telling how little time was left. So there was only one option, head to Markov's world right away, and take the hikikomori with him. "Well then," Stefan said with a resolution and confidence he did not feel. "Guess hiding out isn't going to be an option. You and I are just going to have to head straight into Monika's dimension."


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome Back To Reality

**Chapter 2: Welcome Back To Reality**

When Monika stepped out of the room, she was momentarily taken aback. Because directly outside of that one room with no other windows or doors was… the outside. And it looked rather like an encampment. There were a number of tents, probably close to fifty of them, and each seemed like it could probably sleep about six people. And many of them were currently running about.

There were people picking up guns from their rooms, people dropping off guns at their rooms, people looking at cell phones, and others carrying bags of who knew what and just running by. Some were whispering back and forth, and others seemed to be conspiring. But everybody was in a hurry. There wasn't a slow walker amongst the people she could see. Everybody seemed to have some goal or purpose in mind.

There were a few other unsettling things about the sight though. First was the fact that everybody was in uniform, and she was pretty sure they _weren't_ school uniforms. They consisted of a brown leather jacket, properly buttoned, with a grey shirt underneath. Both the guys and the girls were wearing black cargo pants. The jacket had an insignia of a red eye stitched over the heart.

Given that this looked like some sort of military camp, there was a second unsettling observation. Nobody hear was older than their early twenties. Ok. Sure. Monika was new here. It was possible that some of the people in front of her were older than they looked. But even if the fact was only that none of them _looked_ like they could be older than 24 or so… it was still equally unsettling.

The third observation was that this red eye, which gave her an unsettling feeling she couldn't quite explain, was everywhere. It was on the uniforms. It was etched onto the sides of the tents. It was etched onto her frickin' hand. It was drawn onto the sides of the brown shoes that everybody was wearing. And when she turned around… to face the building she had just stepped out of… she found that it had been shaped and painted to look exactly like the red eye insignia. And she had just stepped out of the pupil.

Monika stumbled backwards away from the building, tripped, and fell down the stairs. She hit the bottom, and lay there for a moment, stunned. It hadn't been many stairs, only three or four, so she wasn't badly hurt, just dazed. But that only lasted for a second, after which she realized… that there was complete silence around her. Slowly, she looked up. Everybody had stopped moving, and was simply standing there, staring at her.

The awkward silence was broken by one of the girls, who stepped forward and knelt down, offering Monika a hand. The girl had coral pink hair and a red bow in her hair. She had bright blue eyes and a contagious smile. Well, Monika found it contagious, as she found herself smiling despite herself as she let the girl help her back to her feet. As soon as she was standing, Monika's eyes darted around to everybody who was staring at her.

The eyes that were staring back at her forced a cold shiver down her spine. They all looked… dead, emotionless, empty. She hadn't noticed it while standing in front of the Eye Building, but these people felt more like zombies than living people. Sure, they were clearly alive… but they seemed so… vacant. Like they were simply doing what they were programmed to do.

"Alright! Break it up!" Natsuha called, clapping her hands. She was standing in front of the Eye Building, looking disapprovingly at the crowd. They immediately turned and took off running like they had been before Monika's stumble. The ones who had been talking immediately went right back to doing so as they ran. It was like they had all been on pause and Natsuha had just hit the play button.

The only person who didn't immediately take off was the girl that Monika assumed was probably Sakura.

Sakura was different than the rest of the people there. She was smiling, a wide genuine smile. And she was twisting her left foot on the ground in an attempt to hide her exuberance. "I… can't believe you're finally back. We all knew it was a long shot… I mean… You were gone for two years, and every other test had failed. I was so afraid…" Apparently giving up her flimsy attempt to seem non-challant, Sakura embraced Monika. "Welcome back!"

At which point, Natsuha stepped in and pulled Sakura apart from Monika with a slight scowl. "Honestly, Sakura," She said tersely. "This is why you are still stuck with the new recruits. Signs of affection have no place here. Besides, Monika has no idea who you are."

Sakura's smile faltered for a moment, as she released Monika and stepped back. Her eyes darted between the two of them. "What do you mean, she doesn't remember who I am?"

"She doesn't remember anything," Natsuha replied. "Not about you, not about this place, and not even about Markov himself. Apparently, the experiment had unexpected side effects. All she remembers is the game. She completely forgot about reality."

Sakura's face darkened. "Then she should leave. She should leave _right_ now, before she does remember. We've _all_ wished we could forget so many times. If she actually has…"

"She can't leave, Sakura," Natsuha said with a firm shake of her head. "Not anymore." She took Monika's hand and turned it over to show Sakura the marking. "She belongs to Markov now. There's no place for her out there."

"Will you two stop being so darn cryptic and explain to me what's going on here?" Monika asked, yanking her hand back. "What does this tattoo on my hand even mean? Where _are_ we?"

Sakura and Natsuha exchanged glances, but said nothing for a moment. "Sorry," Sakura said quietly. "I don't want to be the one to explain everything to you. Suffice it to say, that marking… is the insignia of the damned. We call it The Third Eye."

Monika frowned, staring at her hand some more. "And I take it I got this after passing this test that everybody is talking about?"

"Yeah," Natsuha replied. "It's only received after an initiate has passed some form of test. It… signifies the awakening of your inner demon."

Inner demon. Monika's mind immediately flashed back to Sayori hanging from the ceiling, then to Natsuki's broken neck, and then to Yuri's bloody corpse covered in knife wounds. Inner demon, huh? Was Doki Doki set up _to_ have that ending? If so, that meant that the only ending ever deisgned was her own… and her inner demon had been awakened from the pain and rage at not being given one. That was… pretty ironic.

"Wait…" Monika frowned. "Awakening my inner demon is supposed to be a _good_ thing? Where the _heck_ am I?"

"A place where all hope turns into despair, where humanity crumbles into dust, and bloodshed and horror reign supreme," Markov said proudly, walking towards her from the third eye building. His left hand was spread out as if revealing some great masterpiece. "This is the paintbrush I used to create my portrait."

"And why are you so interested in _me_?" Monika asked with a scowl. "You psychopath!"

Markov grinned. "See, what's funny is that you have absolutely no idea how accurate that title is." He motioned his head to her two companions. Sakura was staring at the ground apprehensively, any sign of her jovial spirit completely gone. At the moment, she looked like all of the other people living in this place. Natsuha, on the other hand, simply wore a grimace. "But they know."

"What are you going to do with me?" Monika repeated a second time.

"Don't act like a victim," Markov said, smiling. Somehow, he looked even more terrifying when he did that. "You are the one who chose to join my camp, who demanded trial after trial after trial. You are the one who told me that if you failed this last trial, I was to kill you. You are fully responsible for where you are right now."  
"And where _exactly_ am I?" Monika repeated again.

"In the training area to become a member of the gods of our world," Markov replied. He turned to go, snapping his fingers and saying, "Natsuha, I want you to take Monika to Level Two. Oh, and take Sakura as well. It's about time she moves up." He paused for a moment, turning back to Sakura. "Let's see how well your friendship holds up there. Oh, and best not forget. She already killed all three of you in her video game." Then he strode back into the third eye.

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"I'm sorry. No." Michael said, crossing his hands. "I've already had a strange man show up at my door, been shot at, dragged outside, _and_ had my apartment blow up. I am not a hero. I'm not your savior. And I'm not traveling to another frickin dimension to save a fictional character. And before you argue," Michael held up his hand to silence Stefan. "In this _dimension_ , that's all she is. Leave me out of your dimension hopping."

"If I leave you here, Markov's men will kill you," Stefan replied simply.

"And I'll somehow be _safer_ in _his_ dimension? What makes you think that?" He paused for a second. "How well do you know that world?"

"Um… Well… I've never…"

"You've never what? Been there before? So you're telling me to a dimension you've _never_ been to, that belongs to some crazed lunatic, and I'm supposed to be _safer_ there then hiding out in my world?"

"Everybody who stayed in this world is dead," Stefan reminded him.

"Everybody who is dead had no idea they were being hunted. You're job is done. Feel free to move on now."

"But if you just…"

"I'm not going over there." Michael said. "No way. No how. There is only one life I care about, and that's my own. I feel no pressure whatsoever to throw it away for some girl who doesn't even exist in my world. It is not my responsibility, any more than I am yours. If you want to get yourself killed trying to rescue that girl, knock yourself out. I wash my hands of this though. There is no reason for me to risk my life here. I'm out."

Stefan frowned but shook his head. "Fine. Be done. I won't try to stop you anymore."

"Good," Michael said, turning to go.

"But…" Stefan continued. "I wasn't done. You can go if you want; but to do what? Go back to hiding in some new place wasting your life on video games and cartoons?"

"That's the basic idea," Michael responded.

"So busy experiencing the fake lives of others that you don't have any time for your own?"

Michael frowned and turned around. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I don't play video games because I want to _be_ the people in those games. Most of them have incredibly sucky lives! Besides, I remind you that this whole conversation is about 'the fake life' of somebody from one of those games I played. I don't understand what you are trying to sell me on."

"Life," Stefan replied. "I'm trying to get you to live."

"No," Michael replied. "You are trying to get me to die. Yuri made it very clear what sort of man he was, and what sort of place Monika is in now. And if that guy has the power and influence to have an organization that spans dimensions, I won't last a day in that world."

"So what?" Stefan replied.

"So I want to live! And don't feed me some 'really live' cliché about how danger and adventure make life worth living. If I merely wanted _that_ , I could blindfold myself and walk across a street."

"Have you never wondered what it would be like to reap the rewards of fully engaging in something difficult?"

"You're talking to a Gamer, Stefan. I do that _all_ the time."

"I meant in the _real_ world."

"The real world is a terrible place," Michael replied. "I have no interest in it. And all of this Markov suddenly being a real guy isn't really helping with that." He frowned. "Look. No matter the angle, if you take me over there, I'm going to be a liability. I'm safer here, where I can hide _not_ in his world, and you are much safer over there if you don't have to worry about me. So _why_ do you want me to go with you so badly?"

"I'm… not a hero." Stefan said quietly.

"Well, neither am I." Michael glanced at his burning apartment. "I mean, if you aren't a hero, what does that make me? You've tried to save a lot of people. You got me away from Markov's men. And you want to charge into another dimension in order to save a girl you've never met. If that doesn't make you a hero, what would?"

"Not constantly failing," Markov replied. "Don't you get it? I've tried _so_ many times to be a hero. I've tried _so_ many times to save the day. Failure after failure after failure. My only success has been you. I don't win, Michael. I never win. I keep trying and trying and trying. I have no intention of ever stopping, but I'm not naïve. My failures have taught me that much. I can't win alone. Somewhere along the line, I _am_ going to die."

"And you want me to be what, your successor? You want to teach me everything you know or something? Cause, no offense, but it really doesn't seem like you know all that much. If we go over there, and you die… then I'll just be alone in that dimension!" He put his hand to his head. "Stefan. Can you give me any _legitimate_ , _logical_ , _tangible_ reason I should do this?"

"Markov needs to be stopped," Stefan replied simply. "You're right. From what I've gathered, his world is a hellish one. Something straight out of a horror story. It's probably too late to save it. And Markov runs the show. The logical response is to simply hideaway in your room and pretend that place doesn't exist. But you can't do that much longer."

"Why not? What kind of cheesy, clichéd, or metaphysical reason are you going to give me now?"

"None. Just the cold hard fact. Markov is building an army. It's almost complete. And soon that world won't be the only hellish horror story planet around. He can travel dimensions, Michael, and his greed knows no bounds. He already has men here scouting it out and learning the ins and outs of how everything functions. He _will_ devour this world, and then he _will_ move on to the next.

"In his wake, there will be trillions upon trillions of deaths. And even if you aren't one of them, you _will_ be just another person trying to survive in a hellish world. If you want to go back to your safe world of video games and potato chips, you'll have to fight for it. Those unwilling to fight for what they want will _always_ lose it."

Michael frowned, glancing off in the direction he had been about to head. He breathed in and sighed. "Just go to the cops, or the navy, or some powerful secret organization. If you can find me faster, and move faster, than Markov's men… surely, you can find one of those to help you. An eccentric old man and a hikikomori vs. a global dictator?How can you _not_ see how psychotic that is?!"

"Of course I see it. I've failed multiple times just trying to rescue one kid. I'm not naïve about our chances, but we don't have any allies in this. Any powerful secret organization not already under Markov's thumb is busy fighting that fate. No sane person is going to believe me. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure why you do. There are countless crazy, whacked out, hair-brained, and far-fetched scenarios that would be far more believable than what I've told you.

"And I've heard a great many of them. You'd be surprised how far some people will go to ignore the truth. We don't have any allies, and we don't have time to find any. We need to get in there and get Monika out as quickly as possible."

"And… suddenly, we're back to Monika." Michael didn't even bother to hide his frustration. "If this is as big as you claim it is, and earth is about to be destroyed by a _frickin'_ maniac, forget about the video game character!"

"No," Stefan replied. "I think she has a critical role in all of this. Think about it. Why would he risk tipping off people on earth that he was real _before_ attacking? That game was a very dangerous gambit, and a needless risk for somebody as ingenious as Stefan Markov. Unless Monika is in some way significant.

"I don't know how that world works, or what Monika is really like outside of the scenario the game gave. I don't even know who she really is. But I'm willing to bet that Markov needs her. It may not be much of a lead, or much of a plan, but getting her away from Markov is the only chance I see of screwing up his plans. So what's it going to be? Are you going to head back to your video games and just wait to die? Or are you going to come with me, and risk living?"


End file.
